Crafters should live in the real world..

Or so I heard one community member say in regards to the nerfing of wolf hats (reduced gold payed by a vendor).
In the proposed economy, vendors don't buy stuff from players. Only players should buy from players. OK. So be it. Then all the cheap adventuring gear, repair kits, and reagents need to be removed/increased prices immediately so that we can have a REAL economy. What's with all the vendor price fixing? Also, durability damage needs to be doubled to be more realistic. I've been wearing the same armor from release only needing a few repair kits along the way. That's not realistic at all, sorry. Additionally, masterwork buffs should be integral and powerful parts of the game for them to drive any part of the economy. I don't think .1 focus regen on a helm is worth squat to anyone, for example.
Crafting needs to actually be an integral part of this game, not just a nerf target.

So why is a crafters time worth little or nothing and why is the crafting playstyle being nerfed?? @DarkStarr @Chris

 

Been saying it for a while....but others don't seem to like.

Your an anomaly then or only wearing the cheap stuff. Anything that's enchanted especially weapons which i can use 3 down to 0 durability and lose a largish number off 2nd durability each longish hunt i do.

 

The real world is harsh, brutal, and unfair. Most businesses fail. It isn't realistic to wander off into the woods with an ax and return with a pile of gold.

If people find crafting fun and want to play FarmVille, I don't really have a problem with it.

But the real rewards should come from doing things which enhance other people's experiences. Whether this is teaming up for a dungeon raid, PvP, or building things for other players.

As I've said before, there can be a few daily crafting missions to help defray some of the costs, but I don't really want to see someone spending all day buying stuff from NPCs, hitting 3 buttons, and then selling them back for profits.

 

But but... solo grinding skellys for income is OK. In fact if you try to nerf it, blood curdling scream emanate from the community. I know many people who do this and almost never do group activities. But I think the value comes when the solo grinders have gold to buy stuff from other players (as one example). In terms of vendoring crafted items, you have the same potential to buy components for the items from other players. In both cases you stimulate the economy and I think that enhances the game experience for everyone.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with making this a "real" economy in the sense that there are no controls in place (laws/government) other than the developer. And it becomes like living in an authoritarian state, with one "person" or "company" making the rules. That will never, and has never, worked in games.

I think we need to think of a compromise. Certain items have to be sold by vendors, it brings money back into the economy. Certain items should be bought by the vendors. I need money to buy reagents, and the best thing for me to do is sell NPC mob loot. I have a RL job and don't necessarily want to "work" in a game. That's just me.

However, the crafters should be tops for gear, weapons, furniture, accessories, etc. Players want that gear/stuff. Yes, you can buy some cheap ones at a vendor for now, but later start taking the 100 daggers you make and put it into the game world through vendors, mobs, chests, whatever. I know this may still be part of the plan, and I respect that it could take a real long time to implement and get it right.

 

@monkeysmack I've spent the last week taking a break from the game because of R33. To gather, I have to fight 1-5+ mobs. To craft, I can blow those hours of gathered mats in seconds, and then get to watch it all go up in smoke or have items with no resale value. Keep in mind, the gathering and most other things are done in single player mode so as not to fight for resources. R33 buffed group instances, so none of my friends can do them yet. Even if they could, healer aggro is broken as hell and I'd die trying to keep my friends up.

I came to the game at the end of R31 knowing it was alpha, but also knowing if I didn't purchase a pledge then, I'd have a difficult time getting a house later. R31 and R32 were fine for me. Now I'm watching people logging in less, less enthused about the game, etc, and it's really bringing me down. To get decent land, you had to play during R32, but the sweeping changes they continue to make to all facets of the game are really not good.

Every day, I check the patch notes and browse the forums for the climate. "Yep, taming is wonky. Oh no, Monkey's wolf heads got nerfed. Control points are impossible for level 60+ now so the main option is solo Deep Ravenswood. Free lotto tickets being given to players who didn't have a house pledge. No real economy to speak of."

It's honestly super disheartening to see all of this. Realistically, at this point, it's a solo game at best. It makes me want to put some longterm COTOs on my row lot, pick up my village lot, and go play other games while I wait for things to be more stable.

 

Don't let it get you down. There have always been ups and downs. I've been gone almost 5 months because of a family emergency with my mom and coming back was such a pleasure, so much progress was done. I can see the light even though the Unity upgrade didn't help the lighting but broke some of it, well not yet . So so many different opinions. I have been crafting today and wow I love the changes to the crafting windows and the whole process is so much better and less clunky than when I left. I am so amazed and awed by what was done. True there are issues in every system to be ironed out, none of them are done yet, yes I said none of them are done. Try hanging in there since 2013, well we are the ones making the difference to this game with our feedback. It is up to us. Just had to get that out lol *cheers*

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the crafting. I never saw the old windows, but I love the whole process! It really makes things seem hand crafted.

I absolutely, fully understand and respect the community that has been around for years. I've been following the game since it was on Kickstarter. My main issue is that I had wanted to wait until it was officially out. However, I found out the game was being put into persistence and pledges for housing were going away while lot selection would also be going on. It essentially forced my hand in a way.

 

Drops and selling to vendors are the only way to add new gold into the economy. Selling player to player or PVPonly redistributes existing wealth. Adventurers can generate gold while building THEIR skills but Crafter cannot. Items like the wolf hats gave us some hope.

@DarkStarr @Chris please please work on helping crafting be a viable way to survive. I should not have to spend 85% to 90% of my time being forced to adventure when I am a crafter.

 

Seems to me you need to actually have an economy before you nerf it for fear of inflation. But, hopefully they are planning on replacing the lost control points with other content to keep grinding from being monotonous. We need a variety of economically viable playstyles that produce income in the game. Crafting is not looking good as a source of income in the current iterations of nerfings. It's more like the red headed step child of the game right now.

 

Couldn't agree more. So I'm willing to require that crafters can only make income from selling to other players if also adventurers can only make income from other players through PvP.. no more vendoring loot. Deal??????

 

While we're on the subject of crafting and profit, while I'm pleased that there's a whole bunch of new rugs available, I thought we were moving away from vendor deco and making things player-made. I was able to make a little bit of coin selling rugs and carpets and tapestries and then now there's a whole bunch of fancier ones on the NPC again. Is this temporary?

 

Also there is still not enough reward for our endeavors, that still needs balance. For example greymark forest is more difficult now which is fine, but the rewards for the difficulty are not balanced and have in fact gotten worse. Loot still needs improvement. Crafting a set of armor takes approximately 200 metal and if you enchant it you have a great chance to destroy it. So who wants to take that chance, it was a white iron plate set. I'm not saying take away difficulty but the reward is on the low side in most loot tables atm. We still need a fun factor with the loot table, not that it gives everything to us, but that there is some reward to the endeavors. I love the salvage concept. I still want vendors to take loot, and perhaps that is where the loot table will get the player items or from creatures taking an item when you die. There has to be some system to get a good piece of armor to the loot table even if it is very occasionally and difficult to see. It would still be such a surprise if that happened. For example a white iron helm +3 made by macintosh (fake name) was found fighting greymark elves. Now how would that happen if elves and creatures don't steal items occasionally. I think it is in the plans that they can. It would add an excitement factor and a frustration factor, but it would make the crafter viable. I know that would hurt to have creatures steal from us, although they could do it sometimes in UO and we all dealt with it. So they steal your helm and you go after resources or hire someone to make you another.

 

Sorry but you need to be able to sell crafted weapons/armor to NPC vendors at least at a small profit. Part of Port's goal was to have Players sell stuff to NPC's and then have it appear in the loot tables for someone else to find... but who's going to sell items to an NPC for a huge loss? Second, allowing players to sell to NPC's at a very slight profit at least allows them some income to buy the gathered (ores) materials from other players to continue crafting more stuff, otherwise they have to go gather it themselves to make any kind of profit. (Yes, yes I know there's those few savvy business tycoons that are doing great... but should the game be based on them or the average player? Must everything be nerfed because of the 1%?)

 

Someone who made too many because he was trying to grind up a skill level?

Remember, even if it's a money loss, you still got a little producer XP, and XP was applied to raise skills.

 

... Only if you are rich and can afford the loss. You have to be able to pay for your materials somehow... So selling to NPC's should give you a minimum profit to continue your skill up. I'm only able to do it because I can sell pledge items I don't need to pay for my 'waste'. New players without pledge items won't be able to do that, they need a means to sell their items at a minimum profit.

 

While leveling up, none is going to buy your stuff. None needs it, that is a fact that many crafters in this game seems to forget. If NPC would buy it with profit, it would be abused.
Most of the stuff that is on sale, is no use for anyone and rest is so overpriced, that it makes no sense.
While you are leveling up, you can't expect others to pay your expenses. Go mine, level up and craft high end gear, hope for the best, make some money.

Its not realistic to think, that you can earn money with crafting with this economy we have here.

I still run around with the same plate I bought from shop, on second day. ( Armor makes so little difference against op archers, that I don't need to get better). Weapon is good, if you get crit chance and dgm. After you get your ONE set of armor and ONE weapon, you never need another. No economy for crafters in this game.

 

Nobody is or should be guaranteed or entitled to make a profit. That's the way capitalism works. Invoking class envy doesn't make it any more right. There is no award for just showing up.

FFXI has worked that way for almost 15 years now. If people want to skill up, they have to make a bunch of crap that is usually a big money loss, and you are limited in what crap you can make because too low level = no skill-ups, and too high = failures = no skill-ups. You're happy if you can break even from selling useless (and 95%+ of the stuff you can craft there is useless!) junk to NPCs. Then you finally have the skills that you can (hopefully) use to start making money.

 

I agree.

Also, the case is becoming very strong (imo) for requiring reagents on all spells.

 

Monkey made me enchanted/masterworked leather armor with less than default durability that has lasted me almost a month before needing to throw my first repair kit on it, so i can vouch that his claim is not an isolated case